World's first stem cell trial for stroke patients

Doctors have injected stem cells into the brain of a British stroke patient in
the world's first trial of its kind.

The elderly man was injected with roughly two million neural stem cells at Southern General Hospital in Glasgow. They hope the stem cells will help the man recover from his stroke, by transforming themselves into mature neurons and also stimulating the brain to harness its own recuperative powers.

His progress will be monitored over the next two years.

The method controversially uses neural stem cells grown in the lab from those taken from the nascent brain of a discarded 12-week-old human foetus.

Stem cells are the body's master cells, that can turn themselves into different types of mature cells given the right conditions.

Laurence Dunn, a neurosurgeon, successfully injected the stem cells into the first patient, who has since been discharged.

Professor Keith Muir, a neuroscientist from Glasgow University, who is leading the Pilot Investigation of Stem Cells in Stroke (PISCES) study, said: "We are pleased that the first patient in the PISCES trial has undergone surgery successfully.

"Stroke is a common and serious condition that leaves a large number of people with significant disability.

"In this trial we are seeking to establish the safety and feasibility of stem cell implantation, which will require careful follow-up of the patients who take part.

"We hope that in future it will lead on to larger studies to determine the effects of stem cells on the disabilities that result from stroke."

He explained that some of the injected neural stem cells would automatically transform themselves into neurons.

However, earlier trials in rats showed that the stem cells also triggered "a variety of repair processes in the body", he said, such as helping to grow new brain blood vessels and mobilising the brain's own population of stem cells.

It is almost 10 years since scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York succeeded in repairing stroke damage in rats by injecting their brains with stem cells.

Within six weeks they had become mature brain neurons, proving that it was possible to repair the brains of another mammal.

Over the next year up to 13 patients in total will be given progressively higher doses of stem cells as part of the PISCES trial. Doses will go as high as 20 million cells, said Prof Muir.

All the participants are men over 60 who have had ischeamic strokes - caused by a blockage of blood flow to the brain - and failed to respond significantly to treatment.

Strokes kill about 67,000 people a year in Britain, according to the Stroke Association.

Prof Muir said the stem cells in the PISCES study were grown from neural stem cells from a 12-week-old aborted foetus from the US.

The trial - carried out with the ReNeuron Group, which grew the stem cells in the lab - received UK regulatory approval in January 2009.

Anthony Hollander, professor of rheumatology and tissue engineering at Bristol University, commented: "This stroke trial is based on good research and careful planning.

"It’s far too early to know if the treatment will be successful but the very fact that the trial is now underway is a milestone for UK stem cell research."